Yeah but the movie doesn’t exactly make it clear that the rebels are wrong to blow up the Death Star or that Vader is wrong to kill the Emperor.

It’s like if Han Solo had slammed the Millenium Falcon into Luke’s X-wing fighter in A new Hope to stop him from blowing up the Death Star. “Hey Luke forget this killing business let’s do some saving instead!” Sometimes you can only save what you love by killing a whole lot of people. Finn’s decisison to sacrifice himself is exactly the same. Stopping him only makes sense if it is made clear the sacrifice wouldn’t work. (Which by the way makes Finn look like a bit of an idiot.)

The whole point of Luke’s character arc across the first three movies is the realisation that not fighting is sometimes the best answer.

Sometimes. But not when somebody is killing your friends with huge damn weapons.

DaveWallace:

It’s not that obscure a point, is it? It’s an argument in favour of positive, constructive actions - saving someone’s life, telling them you love them, helping them to be a better person etc. - over destructive ones like blowing things up, killing people, war in general.

She stopped Finn from saving hundreds of people, effectively causing their deaths. If you can see that as constructive, fine, but then by the same logic, Holdo’s sacrifice should’ve been condemned, but it wasn’t. And let’s not forget that Rose could’ve killed both Finn and herself by crashing into him, which would’ve improved things no end.

Add to that the point above that I made in response to Lorc: expounding a message of non-violence while fighting a war against mass murderers who blew up an entire system and will cheerfully kill you all if they get your hands on you is not something that makes sense.

Like Tom said, the message is pretty clear indeed (we are, in fact, hit over the head with it none too subtly), it just doesn’t work with everything that is happening with the movie. It rings false and naive and hollow.

She stopped Finn from saving hundreds of people, effectively causing their deaths

Uh, pretty much everyone who alive at that point survived to the end of the movie.Not hundreds by any sense of the term.

Christian:

Add to that the point above that I made in response to Lorc: expounding a message of non-violence while fighting a war against mass murderers who blew up an entire system and will cheerfully kill you all if they get your hands on you is not something that makes sense.

Then I misinterpreted you, sorry. I thought when you said the lesson for Luke was that sometimes it’s best to learn not to fight, I thought you meant that as a parallel to Rose’s decision to keep Flinn from attacking the cannon, but I see you were responding to a related-but-different point of Arjan’s.

You said “The whole point of Luke’s character arc across the first three movies is the realisation that not fighting is sometimes the best answer.” However in ROTJ fighting does appear to be the best answer for the rebels who blow up the Death Star and Vader killing the emperor.

So killing and sacrifice are right sometimes. The point is it seemed right to me of Finn to sacrifice himself. It made sense ethically and Rose stopping him and her objection of “Don’t kill what you hate, save what you love” are not congruent, especially since he would have saved a lot of people if the sacrifice worked. The only valid reason for Rose to stop him would be if she was sure the sacrifice is pointless.

That really is a shit truth for a Star Wars movie, because the entire saga is centered around the opposite approach of barely patched-together improvisation working and saving everyone.

That’s a very good point. It’s a little dumb to start trying to make uncomfortable points about heroism when the first movie put an untrained teenage water farmer from Tatooine in an X-Wing and he ends up destroying the Death Star. In The Last Jedi, Rey pretty much has no plan, does all sorts of irresponsible and crazy stuff, and then ends up rescuing the twenty or so people who survive Holdo’s plan to save the resistance.

Just about every Star Wars movie has protagonists who don’t follow rules, don’t conform to responsible expectations and then the universe rewards the risks they take. Even Rogue One, the heroes are outcasts and misfits who disobey orders and end up saving the rebellion- or giving a farm boy from Tatooine the chance to save it.

The only valid reason for Rose to stop him would be if she was sure the sacrifice is pointless.

Well, to be fair, as far as character logic is concerned, she actually has a valid reason: Her sister already sacrificed herself and she’s still traumatised by that and can’t stand watching the guy she loves do it, as well.

From a character point of view, the action is actually fine, it’s just terrible where the
plot and thematic build of the movie is concerned.